ISO Design Studio
The ISO Design Studio project is situated within a historic print works warehouse building in the Merchant City Area of Glasgow City Centre, and forms studio office space and a new creative home for ISO Design.
Working with the constraints of a narrow frontage and long plan, the basis of the scheme is a 600 sqm conversion of an existing three storey former retail space (upper ground, lower ground and basement) into purpose built flexible office space, event and screening space, social areas and a series of digital editing suites.
The upper ground floor is the main workspace, whilst the lower ground floor has the main social area focused around a kitchen/dining space and light well to the street.
The basement, focused around a sunken lightwell to the back court, provides a new flexible offering for the studios in-house operations creating a ‘city’ space with hireable conference, gallery, educational and event screening areas.
Glasgow is a city of stone built on a grid of urban blocks with lanes and light wells creating a city of fronts and backs. With this in mind, the main design moves centred around opening up the section to create ‘light wells’ to the front and back of the plan which introduce light and air to the lower levels, both visually and physically connecting the internal spaces to each other while activating the street frontage. In terms of materials the archaeology of the site has been exposed to express the layers of brick, stone and concrete historic fabric.
The interior rooms have been defined by a series of carved spaces and external views have been opened up to bring light and a sense of place. Elements of the historic fabric have been exposed to give meaning and connection to the history of the building and work in harmony with layers of refined, contemporary and durable elements.
A layer of new crafted elements have been inserted into the studio (window seats, work spaces, social areas, meeting spaces, circulation pieces) to provide a hierarchy of intimate to communal spaces.
The project was awarded the 2017 Scottish Design Award for best commercial / office building or project.
